


I Was Soaring Ever Higher

by boasamishipper



Series: Wayward [1]
Category: Top Gun (1986)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural (TV) Fusion, Angels, Blood and Gore, Crossroads Deals & Demons, Demons, Developing Relationship, Gen, Hellhounds, M/M, Male Friendship, Pre-Slash, Supernatural Elements, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:08:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27343282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boasamishipper/pseuds/boasamishipper
Summary: Maverick Mitchell grew up thinking his dad was a pilot.--Or, the Supernatural AU of Top Gun.
Relationships: Mike "Viper" Metcalf & Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Nick "Goose" Bradshaw & Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Tom "Iceman" Kazansky & Pete "Maverick" Mitchell
Series: Wayward [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1996711
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	I Was Soaring Ever Higher

**Author's Note:**

> The plot of this fic was inspired by the first four seasons of Supernatural, particularly S2E21-22: All Hell Breaks Loose and S4E01: Lazarus Rising. Everything else is of my own creation.

Maverick grew up thinking his dad was a pilot.

His mom let him believe it. She hung up all the crayon drawings he made in preschool of the three of them on the fridge, a tiny Pete Mitchell sandwiched between a woman in a dress and a man in a white uniform. She soothed him when his dad couldn’t be there for his birthday, for the holidays, for his first day of school. She told him that it was because of his job — that he was stationed somewhere far away and exotic, saving the world from the bad guys just like in the stories she told him at bedtime.

Little did he know that Duke Mitchell was out there saving the world from a threat a hell of a lot scarier than the Russians. Maverick didn’t find that out until after the funeral. After both of them — his dad first, out on the job, his mom a year later from grief. Viper Metcalf took him inside the house, made him a mug of hot chocolate and watched him until the mug was drained. Then he got him another one.

“I’m sorry for your loss, kid,” he said, quiet, but still loud enough to be heard over the hum of the dishwasher and the conversation in the living room. Maverick didn’t know Viper then, but knew anything had to be better than dealing with the stares of his mom’s friends and relatives who didn’t want him, the whispers of _poor baby_ and _Mary_ never _should’ve married that deadbeat Mitchell_ and _I told her it’d end in tears, didn’t I? Didn’t I?_ “Your mom was a good woman. Everybody liked her. Duke would’ve given her the moon if he could.”

Maverick stuck out his bottom lip, staring deep into the empty mug wrapped between his hands. “Dad’s dead too.” _And a fat load of good Dad did her when he was alive._

“I know,” Viper said gravely. “And I know what killed him.”

Maverick’s head snapped up.

He spent the next three months living with Viper in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, while they tracked down a group of shapeshifters. Six weeks in Toledo, Ohio, looking for a revenant. Curses to unravel in Milwaukee, Oregon. Demons to exorcise in Miami, and vampire covens to burn down in Louisville, and a poltergeist in Providence. All the while, Viper and all the friends of his father’s that he’d never met before — Robby Benjamin, Jester Heatherly, Stinger Jordan — taught him how to stay alive. Taught him right from wrong, guns from knives, how to jack a car and pick a lock and read Latin like a preacher. And how to know a demon from a human.

He kept that tidbit close to his chest. He’d need it once he tracked down the bastard that murdered his father.

* * *

He met Goose Bradshaw on a hunt in Dallas when he was twenty-one. It was his first hunt without Viper or Stinger or Jester breathing down his neck, where he got to do something more than just charm witnesses and practice exorcisms in his motel room, and he was less than thrilled when he found out there was already another hunter at the scene. Goose was pretending to be FBI, Maverick was pretending to be a federal marshal — and they both picked the same alias: Jerry Lee Lewis. Once all that got smoothed over and the vengeful spirit of Thomas J. Cunningham IV was laid to rest, Goose slung an arm over Maverick’s shoulder, congratulated him on a job well done, and invited him out for a beer.

One beer turned into another, and before Maverick knew it, he was sharing things with Goose he’d never told anybody before, laughing with him, letting his guard down for the first time in his life. When their paths crossed again two months later in Miramar, California, even Maverick had to admit it was fate. They became a team, just the two of them against the world, and built their reputation from the ground up as the best of the best. It got to the point where other hunters started to recognize him as Maverick Mitchell, Goose’s partner, not Maverick Mitchell, Duke Mitchell’s son. Rare as those moments were, they were worth their weight in gold.

When Goose got married, Maverick told him to spend all the time with Carole that he could — and with his son, once Bradley was born. Maverick spent those weeks alone, taking every case he could in the hopes it’d bring him one step closer to finding his father’s killer. Viper called him the Yellow-Eyed Demon, when Maverick was growing up, and that Duke ’pissed him off,’ but that was all Viper knew.

“It’s like you’re chasing a ghost, Mav,” Goose said once, late at night, when Carole was upstairs putting Bradley to bed.

Maverick pretended not to get it. “He’s a demon, not a ghost.”

“You know what I mean,” Goose said, serious enough that Maverick dropped it. “All these years you’ve been looking for him...it makes me nervous. What’s going to be left of you once you find him?”

Maverick stared down at his hands, knotted tightly into fists. Goose didn’t understand. He _couldn’t_ understand. He hadn’t grown up with the need for absolution burning him alive from the inside. What would be left of Maverick afterward didn’t matter, not if it meant his father (and his mother) would be avenged at long last.

“You’re the only family I’ve got,” he finally said. “I’m not gonna let you down. I promise.”

It wasn’t the answer Goose was looking for, but it was the only one Maverick could give him. He wouldn’t let his vengeance consume him, and he wouldn’t let Goose — or Carole, or Bradley — down. Not as long as he drew breath.

Goose nudged his foot under the kitchen table. “Listen,” he said quietly. “I know it’s tough on you — losing your parents, being Duke Mitchell’s son and growing up with that reputation — but you don’t have to go through it alone. Let me help you.”

Maverick looked up. Goose was looking right at him, his face open and eyes earnest, silently asking Maverick to trust him. His throat closed up at the sight. Goose was one of the best hunters out there, and he was Maverick’s best friend. Of course Maverick trusted him. Had trusted him to watch his back for the last three and a half years. But this was his family, his mission, not Goose’s. He couldn’t ask Goose to go along with this.

“You don’t have to ask,” Goose said, and Maverick wondered if he’d spoken aloud or if Goose had read his mind. Either option seemed equally likely. “I’m offering.”

Maverick hesitated — but he didn’t get his hunter nickname by thinking every little thing through. He nodded. “Alright,” he whispered. “Okay.”

Goose grinned, wide and genuine, and Maverick found himself grinning back. “Thanks,” he said, nudging Maverick’s foot under the table again. “You won’t regret this.”

“I won’t if you won’t,” Maverick said honestly, and Goose laughed, and came around the table to wrap an arm around Maverick’s shoulders.

“Stick with me, Mitchell, we’ll go places. Truth be told, I snuck a peek at the notebooks in your tank bag at the last motel we stayed at, so I’m a little ahead of the game.” A distant cry pierced the air, and Goose patted Maverick on the shoulder. “Duty calls, but when I get back, we’re gonna go through this some more.”

Maverick snapped him a salute, still smiling to himself even after Goose left the kitchen in a rush. He could hear Stinger warning him about the dangers of having too many hunters on the trail, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Maybe two heads really would be better than one. Maybe they could bring the bastard to justice together.

For the first time in a long time, Maverick let himself hope.

* * *

And then Goose died.

* * *

It was Maverick’s fault. He hadn’t been able to figure out the Yellow-Eyed Demon had been fucking with them the whole time, leaving whispers of clues that led to a trap. He hadn’t realized the demon wreaking havoc in Cold Oak, South Dakota, was the one he’d been searching for his whole life until he and Goose got cornered. He couldn’t move an inch from the wall he’d been telekinetically pinned to while the Yellow-Eyed Demon stalked toward Goose — and he couldn’t do a _goddamn thing_ but scream as the Yellow-Eyed Demon locked eyes with him, smiled, and twisted the knife into Goose’s back. “Just like your old man,” the demon said. “He was a disappointment too.”

Goose was long dead when Maverick finally escaped the pin, long after the demon disappeared into a plume of black smoke. Blood caked the front of his shirt; the clasp on his cross necklace was broken. His eyes stared up at the ceiling, past Maverick, past everything, and Maverick collapsed on top of his best friend and broke down sobbing.

He took Goose to the closest safe house they had. Laid him out on the good bed, not the twin he always griped about when they stayed here, and folded his hands over his chest. Wiped the blood away from Goose’s stomach and his back and his mouth. Fixed the clasp on Goose’s necklace. And for the three days that followed, Maverick’s grief ravaged him from the inside, buzzing in his veins like something alive. Like it was the only thing keeping Maverick alive.

“I let you down,” he whispered, in the dead of the night. He hadn’t moved from the chair at Goose’s bedside except to use the bathroom — hoping, deep down, that if he stayed here long enough, he’d wake up from the living nightmare his life had become. “I know — I know you don’t think so, but I did.” He inhaled sharply. “That’s what I do, you know? I let down the people I care about.”

Everybody he’d ever loved, he’d let down. He hadn’t avenged his father, hadn’t been good enough for his mother to keep living. If he’d just been faster, stronger — if he’d refused Goose’s offer to help him, God, _if he’d just fucking said no_ — Goose would still be alive. It was his fault. All of it.

_God, how am I supposed to live with that?_

“What am I supposed to do?” He could hardly get the words out, his throat was so tight. His eyes prickled painfully. “Fuck, Goose, what am I supposed to do now?”

* * *

His feet took him to the crossroads. He was trembling when he buried the box in the dirt and waited for the demons to come, but not from fear. Not from anything. Everything felt like it was happening to someone else he was watching from a thousand miles away, like he was already dead and gone. If this didn’t work, he would be.

“Pete Mitchell,” came a voice from behind him, and he whirled around. A young woman ambled toward him, wearing a dark dress and an even darker smile. Her eyes were as black as midnight. “How _long_ I’ve waited to meet you.”

Maverick stood his ground. “I want to make a deal.”

“So does everybody who comes my way,” the demon said. “Anything they want, for naught but a kiss and their soul.” She smirked. “What makes you so special?”

Maverick bared his teeth. “Goose Bradshaw,” he said, as steady as he could make himself. “One of your own killed him. And he’s—” _Good, kind, selfless. Everybody likes him. Liked him._ “He didn’t deserve to die.”

The demon hummed. Interested, clearly, but not willing to make the first move. He had to say the words.

“Bring him back to life,” Maverick said. “And my soul is yours.”

* * *

“Tell me you didn’t make a deal for me, Mav. Tell me.”

“Goose,” Maverick tried to say, but the name caught in his throat on the way out. Goose had a white-knuckled grip on the lapels of Maverick’s bomber jacket, even though his hands were shaking. “Don’t. Don’t be mad. I had to.”

 _“Goddamn it,_ Mav,” Goose whispered harshly. All the color he’d regained since he’d come back to life had left him. “How long?”

Maverick looked away.

Goose shook him. _“How long?!”_

Tears burned his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. Refused to be sorry for a decision he would have made again, in a heartbeat, if he had to. “A year.”

Goose’s throat bobbed. His mouth opened, closed again. “You _stupid ass.”_ His grip loosened; he leaned forward and took Maverick by the shoulders, but not to admonish him or shake him. He looked like his knees would give out from under him if Maverick wasn’t there to hold him up. “How could you — _why the hell would you do that?”_

 _“I_ _had to.”_ Maverick choked on a sob. “I couldn’t — I couldn’t let you die. You have a family to go back to. I didn’t want Bradley to grow up like I did.”

“So now what, now you want me to go home and tell my four year old son he’s going to have to grow up without a godfather? What am I going to tell Carole, Mav?”

Maverick couldn’t meet Goose’s eyes. “He can handle growing up without me,” he whispered. “He and Carole couldn’t handle losing you. I couldn’t handle losing you either.”

“Jesus, Mav.” Goose’s voice broke. He tipped forward more and pressed his forehead to Maverick’s. Tears dripped down his face and onto Maverick’s, mixing with Maverick’s own tears. “I could throttle you.”

Maverick’s laugh was watery. “What, and send me downstairs ahead of schedule?”

“That’s not funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be.”

Goose took a shaky breath. Somehow, his words managed to come out steady. His eyes were drying already — like they knew they wouldn’t have much longer to cry over him. Maverick’s heart twisted sharply at the thought. “I’m going to fix this, Mav,” he said, low and firm. “I don’t care what it takes, I’m gonna get you out of this. I swear to God I will.”

 _Don’t,_ Maverick wanted to say, but then Goose was hugging him tight enough to crack a rib, and Maverick decided then and there it’d be easier to let Goose take the lead and just go along for the ride.

* * *

Carole cried when they told her, and embraced Maverick for what felt like a year, cursing him out and then, later when Goose wasn’t in earshot, thanking him for saving Goose. The three of them decided not to tell Bradley, not until they absolutely had to, and Maverick intended to do the same for Stinger and Viper and Jester, everyone that had had a hand in raising him and making him the hunter he was.

That plan lasted a month before he and Goose made an emergency pit stop in Miramar. They’d been following the tracks of the Yellow-Eyed Demon, and by the time the trail went cold, Maverick needed stitches after tackling a demon through a skylight, and Goose had a dislocated shoulder, and Viper’s was the closest non-hospital safe place they had. Goose was leaning against the counter while Maverick sat shirtless at the table, getting stitched up, and complaining goodnaturedly about Maverick’s reckless streak. Which would have been a perfectly fine thing to complain about had he not decided to finish up the rant with _Making a deal doesn’t make you invulnerable, Mav, come on,_ and Viper went still as a shadow.

“What the hell did you just say?”

Goose’s mouth snapped shut. “Nothing, sir.”

“Don’t you bullshit me, Bradshaw.” Viper came around the chair and leaned over Maverick, staring him right in the eyes with the thousand yard stare that got him his hunter callsign. “What the hell did he just say about a deal, Maverick?”

Maverick’s spine straightened automatically. Years of living with Viper had taught him how to react when he was being yelled at — unlike his father, Viper actually had been in the Navy, and he liked yes sirs and no sirs and respect and being looked at in the eye — but not how to lie convincingly. He went with the truth. “You know what he said, sir.”

Viper went white. “You didn’t.”

“I did, sir.”

“You arrogant shit,” Viper whispered, but for once there wasn’t any kind of heat behind the words. He looked as stunned as Maverick had ever seen him. “I could _throttle_ you.”

“Yeah?” Maverick jerked his chin at Goose. His eyes were wet again; he blinked back tears. How his tear ducts weren’t on strike from what he’d put them through yet, he’d never know. “Get in line.”

“It’s not over yet, sir,” Goose said quickly, sounding determined even as Viper’s face went from white to green to purple like a broken Lite-Brite. “I’ve got a plan. I’ve been working on tracking down the demon he made a deal with, and once we find her, we’ll convince her to—”

“You think convincing a demon to renege on a deal’s as easy as haggling at the farmer’s market, Bradshaw?” Viper snapped. He was red in the face now and looked almost apoplectic with rage, his mustache trembling over his upper lip, and then he jabbed a finger at Maverick’s chest. “And _you._ Didn’t I teach you a goddamned thing about interacting with those bastards? After what happened to Duke, you were still itching to throw yourself into the pit — and for what? For _him?”_

“Hey!” Goose said, indignant, and Viper ignored him.

“You know what’s going to happen to you down there, Maverick? You’re going to be tortured for _eternity._ Was that worth bringing your friend back and slicing your life expectancy in half? How long’d you get?”

Maverick looked away. “One year, sir.”

Viper swore. _“One?”_

“Look, what’s done is done, alright?!” Maverick retorted. Viper fell silent. “He’s alive and I’m on my way out, and I’m going to find the yellow-eyed son of a bitch and kill him in the year I’ve got left or die trying. I’d appreciate your help if you’re not too pissed at me to give it, otherwise I’ll be out of your hair.”

To Maverick’s horror, Viper’s face crumpled, just for a second before smoothing out again into something unreadable but fragile. “Yeah,” he said, and took a harsh breath. He stepped around Maverick and went back to work on the stitches. The hand on Maverick’s shoulder was trembling. “Christ, kid. I knew you’d be the death of me, I just didn’t think it’d be like _this.”_

“It was worth it, sir,” Maverick whispered. He didn’t dare look at Goose. “Anything they do to me, it’ll be worth it.” _It’ll be worth it if everyone I care about makes it through._

“Quit acting like it’s over,” Goose snapped. “We’ve got eleven months to figure out a loophole, so quit acting like there’s nothing that we can do about this.”

Viper pulled the last stitch shut, and Maverick winced. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “For his sake, Bradshaw, I hope you’re right.”

Maverick cast his eyes up to Viper’s ceiling, and secretly prayed that Goose was right too.

* * *

Goose didn’t give up, and didn’t let Maverick throw in the towel either. Between him, Viper, Carole, and Jester and Stinger once they heard about Maverick’s impending date with death, they compiled a trail of leads that kept Maverick and Goose on the road longer than off for the next eleven months. They tried cursed rabbit’s feet, faith healers, tricksters, and African dream roots, each potential loophole to the deal more of a failure than the last. And along the way, they tracked down demons that told of the Yellow-Eyed Demon gathering an army to jump-start the apocalypse, of a special demon-killing gun called the Colt, of the devil’s gate in the same town in Wyoming where Samuel Colt had died: set to open the day Maverick’s deal came due. Maverick figured if he could kill the Yellow-Eyed Demon before he died, that’d make it all worthwhile. Not wanting to upset Goose and Carole, he kept that information to himself.

Twenty-four hours to the deadline, Stinger’s house in Wyoming burned down — and so did half the houses in a hundred mile radius. Newscasters were stunned at the fire that came out of nowhere, but Maverick knew better. It was the work of demons, a sign that the gates of hell were about to open for good. Viper and Jester and Maverick and Goose drove twenty-two hours to get there — Maverick on his motorcycle, Goose in his Impala, Viper and Jester carpooling in Stinger’s old truck — and found Stinger waiting for them, chomping on a cigar and looking as pissed off about the state of the world as ever.

“About time you showed up, Mike,” he snapped at Viper after giving Jester and Maverick and Goose perfunctory nods of greeting. Stinger didn’t believe in small talk any more than he believed in smiling. When a six year old Maverick had complained about there being monsters in his closet, Stinger had given him a .45. “Demons’ve been sneaking by all goddamn day.”

“We got here as fast as we could, Tom,” Viper said, his tone mild but brooking no argument. “You figure out a way to fix it?”

“All we’ve got left are shots in the dark,” Stinger said. “But I got one. C’mon.”

Stinger led them to a mausoleum in the center of the abandoned town’s cemetery, where a strange handle was sticking out of the middle of the pentagram engraving on the doorway to the crypt — which was, as Stinger said, slowly creaking open. A bitter wind rushed through the tombstones, nearly knocking Maverick into Jester. He hated that everyone around him was taller than he was.

“I tried to twist the handle back to closed myself, but I didn’t have the manpower,” Stinger was shouting over the wind. “We all have to do it.”

“How do you know that’s the right thing to do?”

Stinger glared at Goose. “You got a better idea, asshole?”

“Knock it off,” Maverick interjected, trying to inject some confidence into his voice. Trying not to think about the clock he could feel ticking inside of him. “We’ll give it a try.”

One by one, they put their hands on the engraved handle. Maverick’s heart pounded in his throat when he locked eyes with Goose. Jester cleared his throat, and started counting down from three. On one, the five of them pushed the handle as hard as they could—

An explosion sent the five of them flying back into the cemetery, and stars burst in front of Maverick’s eyes as his head slammed back against a tree trunk. The handle had broken off in his hand, and he scrambled up, trying to look for the others, but it was impossible to see a goddamned thing in the darkness, in the pitch-black smoke whirling through the sky. Screams and wails echoed across the land, ricocheting off the tombstones. The demons were free.

Somewhere he could hear Stinger swearing and Viper yelling about closing the fucking gate, but he couldn’t make himself shout for Goose, or even to let them know he was still alive. He couldn’t even move. His blood had frozen in its veins at the sight of the man standing before him.

Specter-pale skin pulled tight over sharp cheekbones. A mane of shaggy brown hair. The remains of bloodstains on the edge of his mouth. Lips parting to reveal crooked teeth. Cold, sunken yellow eyes that glinted, even in the lack of light. “Hello, Pete Mitchell.”

_“MAVERICK, NO!”_

Without looking away, the Yellow-Eyed Demon sent Goose flying into a tombstone, where he sprawled to the ground with a thud. For a moment, Maverick was terrified Goose had broken his neck on the landing, but Goose was still breathing. Still trying to move, even though the demon was keeping him back with the same amount of effort it took Maverick to breathe.

“You know,” the demon said. He was smiling like they’d just run into each other at the grocery store. “I’ll be honest, I’m impressed with you. Very impressed. Who would have known this...pathetic, self-loathing, self-destructive desire of yours to sacrifice yourself for your friends would benefit _me_ in the long run?” He chuckled, shook his head. “Gotta tell you, Pete. You were more of a use to me than your dad ever was.”

Maverick’s hands shook. The Yellow-Eyed Demon laughed.

“Oh, now don’t tell me you didn’t _know.”_ His smile grew wider. “Your dad and I were old friends, Pete.”

“That’s a lie,” Maverick snapped. “My father, he never—”

“Never what?” He cocked his head to the side, still smiling like Maverick was a puppy that was misbehaving. “You never knew him. How do you know what he never was?” He crouched down beside Maverick, who recoiled as much as he was able. The demon’s breath smelled like blood. “Once upon a time, a boy named Duke Mitchell fell in love with a girl named Mary Murphy. And he thought they were going to be happy. But hunters don’t get to be happy, do they, Pete?” He pressed on without waiting for an answer. “So I killed your mom, long before you were even a twinkle in her eye. Slit her throat. And your daddy made a deal with me. _Save Mary, I’ll do whatever you want, just save her.”_

Maverick’s entire body was trembling. He felt like he was going to be sick.

“And Duke Mitchell helped me out, when I asked him to. Killed demons who were disloyal to me, hunted down treasures for me. He was going to open the gates for me just like you did when he backed out at the last minute. Apparently your dear old daddy, ruthless hunter, best killer I ever saw, grew a conscience. And we couldn’t have that.” The demon grinned from ear to ear. “So I killed him.”

Maverick’s vision whited out from rage — one second he’d thrown himself at the demon, and the next he was being slammed into the tombstone again, the demon’s hand around his throat. Goose was screaming something at him, barely audible over the wind. Something about a handle. The gate was nearly shut; Viper and Jester’s faces were near purple from the strain. “You’re,” Maverick gasped, “a fucking _liar.”_

The Yellow-Eyed Demon shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe,” he said, and leaned in close enough that their faces were inches from another. At the demon’s grin, an eerie howling rose from the forest in the distance. Maverick felt his pupils dilate to pinpoints. “Tell you what. You can ask your dear old daddy to tell you all about it when you see him in Hell.”

_“MAV, THE HANDLE! USE THE HANDLE! THE HANDLE’S THE COLT!”_

In the split second it took those words to register, the Yellow-Eyed Demon’s eyes went wide with terror — and Maverick finally looked down at the handle of the doorway that was clenched in his left fist. At the shiny silver barrel and the pentagram carved into the handle of the revolver.

Maverick swung the Colt up into the demon’s chin, and grinned with a fire that surprised even him. “Go to Hell first, you yellow-eyed bastard,” he choked out, and pulled the trigger.

The demon’s head exploded in a shower of black smoke just as the bullet lodged into his chin; a scream more piercing and terrifying than anything Maverick had ever heard seemed to crack open the sky, letting the moon stab a bright hole through the black smoke of the demons in the air. And then everything fell silent as suddenly as someone blowing out a candle — on the other side of the chaos, Stinger, Viper, and Jester managed to shove the doors shut. The demons in the sky, in another howling swirl of smoke, disappeared into dust.

“Maverick? Mav! Mav, you okay?” Goose sprinted across the cemetery and fell to his knees in front of Maverick, touching his face, his shoulders, everything within reach. “You alright?”

“Yeah.” Maverick coughed hard into the crook of his elbow. His head ached, his throat ached worse, there was blood in his hair and ash from the demon — whose body had seemingly disintegrated in the commotion — but he was alive. He’d killed the bastard. Everything else (including the story he’d just heard) could be dealt with later. “Yeah, I’m okay. You okay?”

Goose laughed out loud. “Never better. C’mere, lemme help you up.”

Maverick took the proffered hand, and let Goose pull him back to his feet. Viper and Jester and Stinger were coming towards them, looking about as worn out as Maverick felt. But they were alive. _Everybody_ was alive. Even him.

Even…

The full moon above him dimmed. A howl ripped through the forest, much closer than before.

Maverick’s heart stopped in his chest.

Twenty feet away, on the outskirts of the cemetery, stood a black hound the size of a rhino, with lava-red eyes and fangs like daggers. Looking straight at him. 

Exactly one year later, the deal had come due.

“Goose.” Maverick forced the name out through numb lips. Everything in his body had slowed to a crawl. “Run.”

“What?”

_“Get out of here! Viper, get him out of here — run!”_

Understanding hit Goose and the others like a freight train, but the hound hit Maverick faster. It leapt off the grass, an enormous shadow with teeth, a black cloud in an otherwise clear sky, and knocked Maverick into the dirt. Claws tore at him, shredding his shirt and his jacket — God, not his jacket — and knocking the Colt out of his hand. Blood sprayed a foot high in the air when teeth sank into his shoulder, his stomach, tearing flesh from bone. 

Red was in Maverick’s eyes, in his lungs. The world was disappearing into a faint red haze. Smoke wrapped around his throat, dragging him down and down and down. Somewhere, somebody was screaming, a long scream that went on forever. Somewhere else, somebody laughed.

 _All this,_ said a familiar voice, _for naught but a kiss and your soul._

It wasn’t until the world disappeared completely into red that Maverick realized the scream had come from him.

* * *

Hell was agony. Never-ending, immense, bringing an exquisite suffering that could never be soothed or tamed. Laughs and screams, blood and woe, heat and hooks and chains and wounds that never healed. Sometimes, there were the barest moments of relief, of a breeze, a sudden absence of pain, just long enough for him to hope for salvation — and then it was dashed to pieces.

Despite everything, he didn’t learn to stop hoping.

There was a world above him, different from this. Once, he’d belonged there. And he’d squandered it for this, or so the demons would tell him over and over again, with cruel peals of laughter. _You threw your life away, and now you’re ours forever, Pete Mitchell._ He forced the words to slide off him like rain.

His name was Maverick. He saved his best friend. And if they wanted to break him — he grinned up at the infuriated demons, blood in his teeth — they were going to have to do a lot better than that.

* * *

_Bright light. Chains snapping. Screams of agony — screams that weren’t his. A rumble of thunder from far away. A language he didn’t understand._

_He felt himself being taken up, up, up. Felt the stench of blood and ash and smoke recede. Felt the warmth of life around him again. Felt tears prick his eyes._

**_Shh. Shh. Breathe. Relax._ **

_**You’re safe now. They won’t hurt you anymore. I promise.** _

_**It’s alright. I’ve got you.** _

* * *

It was dark. Pure darkness. Panic coursed through him like electricity — he gasped for air, clawing at the walls surrounding him and ignoring the sting of pain from the splinters, he’d survived Hell, he could survive a few splinters. He could survive _anything_ if he just got the hell out of here, anything, _god please help me, help me._ He felt like he couldn’t breathe — he was going to die again, he knew it, he was going to die and they’d drag him back to Hell and nobody would ever know he woke up and defied death, only for it to strangle him just as quick as it got him the first time— 

He was dead. He was dead, but he wasn’t anymore. He was alive and in a pine box and he didn’t know how he got here, but if he didn’t figure out how the hell he was going to get out of here, there wouldn’t be time to get that first question settled. How long had he been dead? What was the world above him now? Who was still there, waiting for him? Had anyone lived long enough to miss him?

He sobbed, wailed in terror, and started desperately beating at the top of the coffin with his bare fists, screaming for help — and felt something give. Something small, but it gave. The roof of his coffin — Jesus, his _coffin,_ he was _dead_ — shook. The wood was rotting. 

Before he could think too hard about it, he took the deepest breath he could and kicked upward with his hands and feet _hard._ He punched and kicked, widening the holes in the wooden roof, and boosted himself up with a soul-deep groan, thrashing and pulling and falling, dirt in his eyes and his mouth and his throat — everything ached, despair and pain clinging to him like smoke, and he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do this. He was going to die down here, choking on dirt—

_Do it. You can do it, you stubborn bastard. Do it for Viper and Jester and Stinger. Do it for Goose._

He could feel air, could taste it, and coughed hard as he reached the surface, gulping down air like a dying man — like a dying man who wasn’t dying anymore. He was alive. He climbed out of his coffin, onto sweet-smelling grass under a deep blue sunny sky, and went boneless, tears streaking through the grime on his face.

He did it.

He was alive.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Maverick forced himself to his feet. Wobbled a little — he wasn’t used to walking, hell, he wasn’t used to _breathing_ after however the hell long it had been — but stayed upright. And then he almost fell down again, because surrounding the crude white cross of his headstone was a perfect circle of dead trees, laying on the ground like they’d been felled by a nuclear explosion.

Maverick’s mouth went dry.

_What the fuck is going on?_

* * *

Maverick had to walk three miles before hitting civilization, if a half-empty gas station could even be called civilization. The old lady behind the register took one look at him and bundled him off into the restroom, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders. He downed the water she offered him, ate the energy bars even though he wasn’t all that hungry. Viper had taught him to always question the kindness of strangers, but he was too tired to worry if she was a monster or not.

Viper. Jesus. How long had he been dead for? Who else was still alive?

He left the bathroom in a hurry and grabbed a newspaper off the stand. It was a local paper, for a town called Brownfield. He was in Texas. And the date under the headline read November 29, 1987.

Four months. He’d been dead for four months. Holy hell.

“Honey?” said the lady, and he turned on shaking legs to face her. She was holding a first aid kit. “I thought I’d ask if you need any stitching up.”

Maverick tried for a smile. “That task might be a little daunting,” he said, and lifted up his shirt — and the breath left him like it’d been punched out of his lungs when he looked down. No scars. Nothing.

He remembered the hellhound tearing through him like tissue paper. That _had_ to leave scars, a scratch, bruises, _something._ Why weren’t there any scars?

Terrified, he pulled his shirt over his head, cast it aside, and moved to stand in front of the mirror. The sight he got was about ten times scarier.

“Honey, what happened here?” The lady rushed to his side and touched the burn scar on his left shoulder, and then the matching one on his right shoulder. The matching, _hand-shaped_ burn scar. Jesus fucking Christ. “Who hurt you like this? Who did this to you?”

Maverick swallowed back bile. “I don’t know.”

* * *

He talked the lady out of calling an ambulance, but didn’t refuse her offer of borrowing her late husband’s old Chevy on the road. Never mind that he’d only driven a car a few times in his life; he could figure this out. Now he just had to figure out where to go from here.

He ducked into the payphone outside and dialed the number he knew by heart. Waited as the line rang, and held his breath, his blood pounding against his brain. Finally, the phone was answered with a familiar sunny laugh. _“Hello?”_

Maverick gulped. Tears flooded his vision. “Carole?”

A pause. All the sunshine had left her voice in a hurry. _“Who’s this?”_

“Carole, it’s me.”

_“Me who?”_

“Me — Maverick, it’s Maverick.”

She hung up on him. He waited ninety seconds and then called her again. 

_“I won’t ask again. Who is this?”_

“Carole, please, you’ve gotta listen to me. It’s me, I—”

 _“Whoever you are,_ whatever _you are, this isn’t funny. Call this number again and I’ll kill you.”_

She hung up on him again. This time, he didn’t bother to redial.

Carole didn’t believe him. He didn’t expect her to. Not really, not right away. She was a hunter’s wife, sharp as a tack. She needed more than a phone call; she needed physical proof.

Maverick started the Chevy and headed for Dallas.

* * *

Maverick spent the five hour drive there rehearsing his explanation. _I came back from the dead. No, I don’t know how. I know I’ve been gone for four months. I was in Hell, and now I’m not. Something that left hand-shaped brands in my shoulders got me out and left a nuclear wasteland where my grave was. I swear to God I’m me. Please help me._

It didn’t even sound convincing in his head.

Maverick pulled up outside the house — the same house as always, with the white picket fence and the garden in the front and the basketball hoop hanging over the garage. _Jesus,_ he missed this place. Missed Goose and Carole. And _Bradley._ It was November of 1987, was his godson five already? Did Bradley still remember him?

He got an answer to that question when Bradley opened the front door, saw Maverick, and screamed.

Carole ran out of the kitchen like it was on fire, an apron tied around her waist, and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Maverick standing there. Bradley ran to her, hid behind her leg. Still, she didn’t move. All the color drained from her face in a rush. When she tried to speak, her voice came out a strangled gasp, like she was an inch away from fainting. Maverick could relate.

Maverick tried for a reassuring smile. “Hey, Carole,” he whispered, and gave a little wave. He stepped over the threshold, his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Hey, Bradley. Long time no see.”

“Little buddy, what did your mom say about not screaming in the—”

Goose came down the stairs, rubbing his hands on his jeans, and the smile on his face vanished the second he saw what was going on. He gripped the railing tight, staring at Maverick with wide eyes. Maverick stared right back, drinking in every detail of his best friend’s face. The four months apart hadn’t changed him a bit — same wispy blond hair, same brown eyes, same mustache. There were bags under his eyes, like he hadn’t been sleeping well, but that was it. Same old Goose.

“I…” Goose’s throat bobbed. “I, I don’t…”

“Yeah, me either.” Maverick grinned, relieved to be among his friends again. Relieved to be anywhere, as long as it wasn’t Hell and in the company of demons. He came closer, just as Goose took a hesitant step off the stairs. “But, uh. Here I am.”

Quick as a flash, Goose lunged at him with a silver knife and slashed at him. Maverick grabbed his arm and twisted it around; Goose broke the grip and backhanded him in the face, the momentum knocking Maverick back into the living room and flat on his ass. Bradley screamed again.

“Goose—” Maverick scrambled back to his feet and ducked another blow just in time. _“Goddamn you,_ Goose, stop it! It’s me!”

_“My ass!”_

“Wait, wait!” Maverick grabbed the lamp off the side table and brandished it at Goose, trying to keep him and his knife back. “Your name is Nicholas Edward Bradshaw — you were named after your dad’s best horse, the one who threw everybody off it when they tried to ride it! Your whole family’s been hunters for generations, you met me in Dallas when we were both looking into that vengeful spirit—”

“What was its name?”

“Thomas J. Cunningham IV.” Maverick cast about desperately for something, _anything,_ that could convince him. “You fainted when Carole told you she was pregnant with Bradley. You wanted to name him John for John Wayne but she wanted Bradley for her dad, and you love Carole more than anything so you agreed. You got your hunter nickname because a goose chased you into a pond when you were looking for that shtriga in Wisconsin when you were sixteen. You’re…” His voice broke. “You’re the only friend I’ve ever had. Please, Goose. It’s me. I swear.”

Goose lowered his knife. The suspicion in his eyes was fading, replaced with tears. “Mav?”

Maverick nodded.

Goose’s face crumpled, and he grabbed Maverick, pulling him in for a hug. Maverick clung to him, tears streaming down his face despite his best efforts to keep them back when Carole joined the embrace, when he felt Bradley hug his leg tightly. Finally. It was over. He was home again.

* * *

“Carole, is this really necessary?”

“Sorry honey.” Carole slid him the shot glass, filled to the brim with holy water. “Can’t be too careful, you know.”

Maverick shrugged, and knocked back the shot in one gulp. He winced at the taste, fought the urge to spit it back up. “I’ll take the coffee now, if you’re convinced.”

Carole kissed him on the forehead and slid him a cup of coffee. Maverick shifted a sleeping Bradley in his lap and took a grateful sip of coffee. Goose had his elbows on the table, watching Maverick like he was terrified he’d slip away if Goose did so much as blink. “You said somebody just pulled you out of Hell?”

“I think so.” Maverick had already shown them the burns on his shoulders; Goose needed a shot from an ammonia inhaler to keep himself upright after that. “I mean — God, Goose, I don’t know. I was in Hell one minute and the next I was in a pine box.” He blinked, something else occurring to him. “Why’d you bury me, anyway?”

Goose looked down at the table. “Jester wanted you salted and burned, the usual drill. Viper and I talked him out of it.”

“You and _Viper?”_

“Yeah, uh.” Goose ran a hand through his hair. Let out a long breath through his nose. “Viper said you’d need a body when he got you back home somehow. That’s about all he said. I haven’t heard much from him since July.”

Something struck him. “Goose, you don’t think—”

“That he made a deal for you?” Goose shook his head. “He didn’t. I promise. He tried, but he couldn’t. Jester and Stinger tried too. So did I. Nobody would make a deal with us. Said what was done was done, and our souls were tarnished goods. Especially mine, since it was traded and done for.” He nodded at Maverick’s shoulders. “‘Sides, if this was the work of your average everyday demon, I guess I’d have the marks from getting yanked out of the afterlife too.”

Maverick had to concede the point. “So if it wasn’t a demon, and it wasn’t...any of you,” he said slowly. “What was it?”

Goose bit his lip. “You really wanna know?”

Maverick stared at him. “Wait, _do_ you know?”

“I don’t,” Goose admitted. He ran his hands through his hair again, rumpling it. “But I might have a way we can find out.”

* * *

Goose’s answer ended up being an abandoned warehouse just outside the Dallas city limits. The walls, floor, and ceiling were covered in white spray-painted pentagrams and summoning symbols; the tables and shelves stocked with traps and talismans from every faith on the globe. Goose brought out stakes, iron, silver, salt, knives, and the Colt, which Maverick hadn’t expected to see again. Apparently Viper spent the first month after Mav’s death making more bullets for it. Maverick made a mental note to call Viper and explain the situation as soon as _this_ situation got figured out.

He didn’t figure on this ritual idea of Goose’s to take such a fucking long time.

“You in a hurry or something?” Goose said, from his perch atop one of the tables. His legs swung absently. “Come on. Another hour, and then we’ll call it a night.”

As if on cue, a loud rattling shook the roof of the warehouse. Maverick and Goose jumped off their perches and, shotguns in their arms, took their positions. Maverick didn’t know if he was excited or nervous to meet the being they’d summoned, but his finger didn’t move an inch off the trigger.

The door burst open in a gust of wind, revealing not a demon or a ghost, but a man. Handsome, around Maverick’s age, maybe a little older. Short blond hair, spiked up in the front. Piercing, pale blue eyes and honey-tanned skin. He wore a trench coat over a sky blue polo shirt, dark jeans, and a pair of loafers, and silver dog tags on a chain around his neck. He met Maverick’s eyes, and his lips curled up into a strange, shark-like smile.

Blondie moved into the warehouse slowly, like a predator stalking their prey. The light bulbs above his head shattered in a shower of sparks as he passed them. The glass in the windows exploded. Maverick opened fire as he came closer, Goose only a second behind him; the shots tore holes in his coat and shirt, and didn’t even appear to slow him down. 

“Maverick Mitchell,” he said. His voice was strange too, like he hadn’t used it enough to be familiar with it. Something inside Maverick sat up straight. Like he’d heard it before. “We meet again.”

Maverick yanked the Colt out of its holster and fired. The bullet stopped in front of Blondie’s head with a wave of his hand; with another wave, the bullet disappeared into nothingness.

Maverick’s mouth went dry.

Goose swung his shotgun at Blondie’s head; without looking, Blondie grabbed the weapon and used it to swing Goose around like Goose weighed no more than a kitten. Expressionless, Blondie touched Goose on the forehead with his fingertips. Goose crumpled to the ground.

 _“GOOSE!”_ In one fluid motion, Maverick holstered the Colt, grabbed Goose’s silver knife off the nearest table and shoved Blondie up against the wall, holding the knife to his throat. Blood trickled from where the knifepoint nicked skin, but — and Maverick’s eyes widened — the cut healed right before Maverick’s eyes. “What the fuck?”

“Your friend’s alive, you know,” Blondie said. There was the faintest tinge of impatience in his voice. “He’ll wake up in ten minutes with no memory of seeing me.”

“Yeah?” Useless though the knife was to him now, Maverick’s grip on the hilt didn’t falter. “And what’re you going to do to me in that ten minutes?”

Blondie looked offended. “You think I’d go to the trouble of getting you out of Hell just to kill you now?”

His hands stilled. Slowly, carefully, he let go of the collar of Blondie’s jacket and stepped back. Still cautious, on guard. “Who are you?”

Blondie crossed his arms over his chest, lifted his chin. “I’m an Angel of the Lord.”

Maverick laughed out loud. “The hell you are.”

“The _Heaven_ I am.” Blondie’s mouth twisted into a sneer. “And considering the fact your ass isn’t slow-roasting over an open flame right now, a little gratitude would be nice.”

The burns on his shoulders ached, sharp and sudden, almost in agreement. In recognition. Maverick shoved the feeling down, reaching for bravado instead of the knife now strapped to his hip. “Since when do angels make a thing of pulling people out of Hell?”

“We don’t.” The intense blue of his eyes seemed to pale. Beneath him, frost grew on the windows that hadn’t shattered. Maverick fought the urge to shiver. “There are rules against the practice. I rebelled.”

Maverick stared. “For me?”

Blondie’s jaw clenched. “Yes,” he bit out. “For _you.”_ The look on Maverick’s face must have been as priceless as it felt, because he cocked his head to the side. “You don’t believe me.”

“Look, all I’m saying is I’d like a little proof before my ass gets down on its knees for you, alright?”

Blondie’s smile was cold, all teeth. He lifted his arms, and the few light bulbs left unbroken went out, engulfing the room in darkness. Lightning flashed from outside, illuminating a pair of great shadowy wings on his back, stretching off endlessly into the distance. He lowered his arms, and the wings vanished. The lights flickered back to life above them.

“There,” the angel said, not unkindly. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. “That proof enough for you?”

Maverick swallowed hard. His ears were ringing, his blood pounding against his brain. The burns on his shoulders ached worse than before, and he couldn’t help but glance over at Goose, still blissfully unconscious on the floor. He wondered if his best friend’s faith had ever driven him to imagine a show of power like this. To imagine _anything_ like this.

An _angel._ Jesus fucking Christ.

“If you’re an angel,” Maverick started, and then stopped. He cleared his throat. “If you’re an angel, shouldn’t you be flying off to — fuck, I don’t know — go and play a harp somewhere? Isn’t that what angels are supposed to do?”

The look on the angel’s face could have melted silver. “Believe me Mitchell, if I had a harp right now, _you’d feel it.”_ He tipped his head back the way Goose did when he pretended to ask God for patience. Maverick wondered if God would grant the angel any. “I cannot _believe_ I rebelled for an infant.”

“Well, I didn’t ask to get rescued by a tightass with frosted tips, so I guess that makes us even.”

Blondie glowered at him, like Maverick just proved his point, and folded his arms over his chest again. “This is a vessel,” he said tightly. “My true form can’t be perceived by the human eye.”

“Wait, you’re _possessing_ this poor bastard?”

“He was a pilot,” Blondie said. “And a devout man. His plane was shot down in the middle of the Gulf; he spent a day and a half floating in the ocean, begging for salvation.”

“So you took his body?”

“His soul was gone when I found him. He didn’t need it anymore.” Blondie tilted his head. "Unlike you, he went to Heaven. No rescue required.”

Maverick ground his teeth. “Look, if you hate me so much, then why the hell did you bother gripping me tight and raising me from Perdition?”

That seemed to take the angel aback. “I don’t hate you.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

Blondie opened his mouth, closed it. His gaze flickered up to the lights, as if for answers; his fists clenched convulsively at his sides. He looked awkward, no longer as imposing. Human. “I saw you,” he finally forced out. “At the crossroads.”

Maverick felt all the warmth in his body flee him in a rush. His heart crept up his throat at the memory: how desperate he’d felt, standing there on the dusty road at midnight, the box buried behind him, Goose lying stiff and motionless on the bed in the safehouse a mile away. The way the demon’s eyes gleamed in the moonlight when she leaned in for the damning kiss, stealing the breath from his lungs — and a year later, the soul from his body, taken by a hellhound. Had the angel seen that too?

“I couldn’t let Goose die.” His throat closed up completely; his eyes burned. “I couldn’t. He’s my brother.”

Blondie’s eyes glinted, just for a moment. “I saw your soul when it arrived in Hell,” he said softly. “It was...you were bright, despite everything. You wouldn’t give in no matter what those bastards did to you.”

Something sparked in his head — the faintest, barest wisp of a memory. Screams, flames. Burning alive, over and over. And then hands on him, soft and cool and soothing. Carrying him away, taking him home.

“I told my superiors there had been a mistake. That your bravery, your selflessness made you an exception to the sacred rules, that you should be freed. But they refused to listen to me. I petitioned them about you, every damned day, for _months."_ He took a long breath, let it out slowly. Maverick was shaking too badly to speak. “Twenty-four hours ago, I was called on by the Archangel Gabriel. The messenger of God. He told me to quit trying to save you, that I’d never change God’s mind. That there was nothing that could be done for you, that it wasn’t worth it to fight for you, the way you fought for your friend.”

The words came out creaky, hoarse. “So you rebelled.”

“First time in my life.” His laugh was utterly without humor. “Don’t apologize,” he said sharply, and Maverick shut up. “I did the right thing. I know I did. I just...didn’t think it’d come at this high of a price.”

Maverick bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood. He wanted to say he wasn’t worth the trouble, that the price the angel paid (whatever it was) had been too high, but he couldn’t make himself speak. He wondered if this was how Goose had felt when he found out Maverick had made a deal for him. Finally, he forced out, “What’s your name?”

The lights above them flickered again. “What?”

“Your name,” Maverick said. “What is it?”

Blondie was silent for a long time. “I don’t have one anymore.”

“You — what do you mean, not anymore?”

“I rebelled,” Blondie said. “I no longer have the right to my name or my title.” The next words were so quiet Maverick had to strain to hear them. “Or my home.”

Maverick swallowed hard. He wanted to apologize, but — like his mother used to say, like Viper _still_ liked to say — what was done was done. The angel had rebelled for him, broken the sacred rules to free Maverick from Hell, and now he was stuck on Earth, aimless, purposeless. The same way Maverick had been those three gray days when Goose was dead and gone.

“Kerachiel.”

Maverick blinked. “What?”

“That was my name,” the angel said. His gaze was steady, but his hand was fiddling with the chain of the dog tags around his neck. If Maverick squinted, he could make out faint letters engraved into the metal — not English, not Latin, not any language he recognized. Something older than the earth they both stood on, than the sky above them. “Kerachiel.”

“Kerachiel,” Maverick repeated, trying the name out for size. “What does it mean?”

Another strange smile. “The ice of God.”

“…Why does God need ice?”

“Hell took all the warmth,” Kerachiel said, so dry Maverick wasn’t sure if he was kidding or not. But his eyes were as serious as the grave when he said, “Consider yourself lucky that you’ve never experienced His wrath.”

Maverick shivered. “Guess you aren’t really the ice of God, now,” he said before he could stop himself. “More like the ice of men. The Iceman Cometh down from Heaven…”

His expression shuttered, just for a moment. “Yeah,” he echoed, bitter. “Guess so.” His gaze moved to Goose. “Your friend’s waking up now. You’d better get him something for his head.”

“I will.” _And I’ll buy him a drink while I’m at it._ “Listen, I...now that you’re — here, what’re you going to do now?”

“A hunter’s work never ends.” Kerachiel stopped, stuck his hands back in his pockets. It must have been a trick of the light — for a second, Maverick was pretty sure he saw the angel blush. “Call on me, if you need any help. I’ll be watching out for you.”

“Do you have a phone number, or am I supposed to call collect?”

Kerachiel laughed, and something in Maverick’s chest loosened for the first time since he’d crawled out of that pine box. Since he made the deal. “You’ll figure it out,” he said. His eyes twinkled. “I’ll see you around, Maverick Mitchell.”

“You can count on it,” Maverick said.

Kerachiel smiled and disappeared — and Goose jackknifed back into a sitting position, groaning and clutching his head with both hands. _“Jesus,_ my head — Mav, you alright? Christ, what was that?”

“You’re not too far off.” Maverick moved to Goose’s side, helping his friend back to his feet, even if his mind was still stuck on Kerachiel’s parting smile. “He was an Angel of the Lord.”

Goose’s hand went to his necklace. “You’re shitting me.”

“Not a bit.”

“Holy shit.” Goose stared straight ahead at the carnage Kerachiel had wrought, at the frost on the windows and the glass on the floor. “Why’d he do it?”

 _He rebelled for me,_ Maverick almost said, but swallowed back the words at the last minute. He wanted to keep that information private for now. Instead, he said, “He just said a hunter’s work was never done.”

“Ice cold bastard, huh?” Goose glanced over at Maverick, who bit back a smile at the almost too apt description. “He’s not wrong. The demons that got freed back in July are still out there. And who knows who’s taken over Hell since you killed Yellow-Eyes.”

Maverick’s fingers traced the Colt holstered at his side, the knife strapped to his hip. Kerachiel was right. They did have work to do. He had to see Viper, and Jester, and Stinger. He had to find out if that story about his father was true or not. 

And now he had a rebellious guardian angel to call upon if things went south.

Funny, the way things changed.

“Well then,” Maverick said. “Let’s get to work.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kerachiel is pronounced CARE-ack-ee-el. Kerach (קרח) means Ice in Hebrew, and -iel (יאל) means Of God.
> 
> Stay tuned for more. ;)


End file.
